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dailypuzzle

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Chess.com

June 19, 2014 0:51

Carlsen Wins World Rapid Championship Ahead of Caruana & Anand

Magnus Carlsen won the FIDE World Rapid Championship in Dubai on Wednesday, finishing on 11.0/15. Fabiano Caruana had the best tiebreak of four players who finished on 10.5; Vishy Anand came third, Levon Aronian fourth and Alexander Morozevich fifth. On Thursday and Friday the FIDE World Blitz Championship will be played.

The third and final day of the rapid tournament started with an absolute cracker: Aronian vs Carlsen; number 1 and 2 of in the world classical chess and in the standings after 10 rounds. It was a great game that started as Ragozin and became a middlegame with White having an isolated queen's pawn. Carlsen's 18th move spiced up the game, and for another ten moves the game was played at a very high level.

Carlsen was the first to make a big mistake, and using much time on the clock he made another one. He played 31...g5 with 4 seconds on the clock - Aronian had more than two minutes there but soon he used three quarters of that. Around move 34 the Armenian GM was winning, but it wasn't easy and he made the practical choice of going for a line that provided at least a perpetual. As it turned out, there was not more than that either.

Aronian-Carlsen was a nice pairing, but what about Jobava-Morozevich? Two of the most creative players around facing each other, that could really only produce a nice game. And it did.

In an IQP position Jobava maneuvered his rook to g4, and two moves later he sacrificed it on g7. Like Mikhail Tal, the Georgian is capable of seeing tactics in the position that nobody else has seen yet! But Morozevich found the small path through the complications, and won the ending.

Nepomniachtchi had no chance against Anand, who completely outplayed his opponent in a 6.h3 Najdorf. It's not exactly clear where it went wrong for Black, but around move 20 he's completely busted positionally.

Round 12 saw the big game between Vishy Anand and Magnus Carlsen - most probably the last but one (they will surely meet in the blitz tournament as well) before their return match for the world title. The Exchange Slav didn't surprise Anand at all, althoug the Indian said he needed some thought “to find the right move order”. He had a tiny edge out of the opening, which quickly became an endgame.

White managed to find some counterplay and at some point Anand gave two pieces for a rook, but he won White's a-pawn. It was probably still a draw because Black's own pawns were weak, but suddenly Carlsen blundered a piece and Anand could keep his a-pawn. White had a few pawns, but it just wasn't enough for a fortress. Another nice boost for Anand for the match, after winning the Candidates?

Caruana still must have been “having fun” as he moved back to shared first place with Anand. The Italian GM beat Tomashevsky in one of the most topical lines of the Closed Ruy Lopez these days (although the novelty was a deviation from a 1978 game!). White got a strong knight on f5, won a pawn and quickly won the ending.

Then, as the two leaders with three rounds to go, Anand and Caruana met on top board. The opening was a Classical French where both castled kingside and Black seemed to be equalizing quickly. Caruana even got a slight initiative on the kingside, but Anand held things together and as soon as an opposite-colored bishop ending appeared on the board, they asked one of the arbiters, and agreed to a draw.

Aronian and Radjabov drew their game, and so they dropped back half a point to go into shared fourth with Karjakin (who beat Tomashevsky), Grischuk (who beat Naiditsch) and Bacrot. The Frenchman beat beat Movsesian, who blundered a mate in one in a drawn position:

And so the situation with two rounds to go was Anand, Carlsen and Caruana leading with 9.5/13; Aronian, Radjabov, Karjakin, Grischuk & Bacrot on 9.

Caruana played Aronian on board one, and played 4.d3 against the Berlin. White seemed to be doing well with a good knight versus bad bishop, but Black won a pawn and kept it. The ending was perhaps draw, but Aronian found a lot of tricky moves and eventually his h-pawn was too strong.

Having bad memories about Astana two years ago, where things went wrong starting with Grischuk, Carlsen didn't get a good position out of the opening. He got into serious trouble and was just lost (e.g. 30...f5) but somehow survived and then even won.

And so Carlsen went into the last round with a half-point lead over Anand, Aronian and Karjakin. The first tiebreak was “ARCO” (Average Rating of Opponents Cut 1), and Carlsen and Peter Heine Nielsen (and the arbiter) had calculated that he only needed a draw in the last round against Radjabov. That last game did end in a draw, but the tiebreak wasn't relevant anymore when Anand and Aronian drew their game and Karjakin even lost:

In an excellent press conference after the tournament (which add to this article later), Carlsen said:

“It means a great deal. Of course the extremely strong playing field gave me extra motivation. It's clearly the strongest Swiss tournament ever held and I'm absolutely thrilled to have won it.”

Full press conference:

Carlsen had “no idea how [he] would be ready for the blitz tomorrow” and that he would follow his father's advice to take some exercise, and so later in the evening he joined in an indoor football match with a group of players!

Carlsen... playing as #1

Played decent chess in the 1st day, moderate in the 2nd and absolutely disgusting in the 3rd. Step by step...

The World Blitz starts on Thursday at 3pm local time (GMT +4) which is 1pm CET, 7am New York and 4am Los Angeles. The championship will be broadcast live on the tournament’s official website with online games and commentary.

Comments

"Round 12 saw the big game between Vishy Anand and Magnus Carlsen - most probably the last but one (they will surely meet in the blitz tournament as well) before their return match for the world title"

"most probably the last but one before their return match for the world title"

If there's one thing worse than a linguistic snob, it's a linguistic snob who doesn't know what they're talking about.

1 - 'last but one' is a parallel expression for 'second to last' and 'penultimate'. They are all equally good in general, though 'second last' is perhaps more common.

2 - 'last but one' is better than 'second to last' in this instance for two reasons:
- because it is slightly unusual, it draws the reader's attention to the importance/interest of this game
- because it fronts 'last', it emphasises that there will be very few more games between these players before the World Championship - again, drawing the reader's attention to the importance/interest of this game.

Congratulations to World Champion Magnus Carlsen for his fortunate win for the World Rapid Chess title. Lady Luck smiled upon him so much that he did not have to revert to his old tricks (which me may still have to fall back on in the blitz championship) of shamelessly retracting blunders with a straight face. Of course he only did that 400% more than any other top player in the same period but who's keeping track of trifles like that? As a loyal fan I wish him continued good luck!!

HAHAHAHAHA! Carlsen may have won the tournament, but he got crushed in style by the TIGER OF MADRAS. In a match, Carlsen won't be able to rely on beating rabbits, but he will be facing Anand game after game. Anand has exposed weaknesses in Carlsen's endgames. Carlsen will remain the paper champion for a few more months, but in the minds of erudite connoisseurs, Anand is now the True Champion (along with co-Champion Vladimir Kramnik). Stick to modeling, Maggie! HAHAHAHA!

s3 now not even attempting to hide the fact that he uses multiple identities to post.
It will be difficult from now on not to attribute any anti-Carlsen ravings (apart from Thomas's) to him even in the uncommon event that they are not. He has cried 'wolf' too often.

Thanks for posting this.
Now that I have seen the vids, I am finally able to qualify your use of terminology.
Fact is, in ALL video's Carlsen immediately resigned after having been pointed out his double move errors.
My opinion is, that all these moves were executed and in realizing his error, Carlsen wanted to correct. I'd call that a reflex. It all happens in a split-second. If you play chess yourself, at whatever level, you will recognize that.

So the qualification of "cheating" is an exaggeration. Also the Kosteniuk vid is a sad example of a girl, not getting enough attention (is this fact or opinion? you judge me on that).

I agree completely with what you say.
I have done the same in blitz in the past myself without the slightest intention of cheating. It is something you need to train yourself out of doing and it would appear that Carlsen has done that.

I agree with you about the Kosteniuk video as well, pretty cringeworthy. It's known she has a "reputation".

So S3 hangs onto these 4-year-old videos of Carlsen "cheating" as a main reason to hate him. What a loser.

@zeveraar. I also watched the videos and when the ref arrives resigning is pointless as it's a loss by rules. Also you are mistaken; in several cases Carlsen didn't resign and suggested he didn't touch pieces. Against Aronian f.e. the ref had to review the tape before he declared the game lost. Against Gashimov MC denied as well.

re: "Fact is, in ALL video's Carlsen immediately resigned after having been pointed out his double move errors."

Really? I guess you don't count the game with Aronian where he wouldn't admit to it until he saw video proof. Waiting to see if the video evidence is conclusive is a novel definition of "immediately".

re: "all these moves were executed and in realizing his error, Carlsen wanted to correct. I'd call that a reflex."

Sure, but after you realize what you have done you should either play the original move or resign immediately but definitely NOT wait until your opponent demands that you play your original move.

re: "If you play chess yourself, at whatever level, you will recognize that."

Well I'm only a club player but I know that if I reflexively do something then it is for me to correct it NOT wait until my opponent demands that I do. On the other hand Bartek Macieja plays at the gransmaster level and HE said in his blog: "With grandmasters it is usually an obvious/conscious attempt to cheat."

I would argue that people who wait and see if their opponent will say something are trying to get away with retracting their blunder (because they have nothing to lose at that point). Sometimes this works like in Polgar vs. Kasparov, 1994 and in Malakhov vs. Azmaiparashvili, 2003. Because their opponents were too shocked to say anything both of those GM's won games that they should have lost and that affected the outcome of the respective tournaments.

Here is the honest way to handle a bad reflex:

'In a game between future World Champion Bobby Fischer and Jan Hein Donner, White had a probably winning advantage; Black had just moved 29...Qg5–f5 and White fell for a swindle. Fischer touched his bishop, intending to move 30. Bd3, which seems like a natural move, but then realized that Black could play 30...Rxc2, and after 31.Bxf5 Rc1 32.Qxc1 Bxc1, the game would be a draw, because of the opposite-colored bishops endgame. After touching the bishop, he realized that 30.Bd3 was a bad move, but since he was obligated to move the bishop, and other bishop moves were even worse, after several seconds he played 30.Bd3. The queens and rooks were exchanged (as above) and a draw by agreement was reached after the 34th move. Had Fischer won the game, he would have tied with Boris Spassky for first place in the 1966 Piatigorsky Cup tournament.' ~ en.wikipedia.org

+100 for RG. RG and truthteller behave far more civilized than observer and some anonymouses who can't make a post without insulting people. No question why a cheating champion is that attractive to them...

S3 didn't post that - I did. I don't agree with much of what S3 posts but some of his views are shared by other chess fans. Also profanity-laced personal attacks add nothing to a discussion about chess and it's players. They are only an angry projection of an immature mind.

Obviously you haven't taken up yesterday's suggestion and read 'Championship Chessmetrics Analysis' have you PircAlert? Wouldn't want facts to get in the way of a good story, would we?
But then in respect of your Anand fantasies, you never did.

Oh nooo, Magnus Carlsen won the Rapid World Championship on a clear first, against the strongest field ever for this tournament. But that should not be possible!? There must be SOMETHING to hold against him? We cannot let this pass without any negative comments. Maybe re-watching the video from all the 15 rounds can tell us something? Or perhaps some of the top 20 players were out of form? I am sure there must be a reason why MC didn’t earn the victory fair and square. Hopefully, Thomas Richter will take his time to tell us!

When Magnus played his one move piece loss, I must confess I thought it was as good as over for him, and when next he reached a very bad white middlegame in a Saemisch King’s Indian against Grishuk, I was sure he had spoiled all his remaining chances. I’m obvously losing confidence too fast. ;-)

Carlsen is a remarkable character, not even faltering in such extreme situations. He just keeps on playing for whatever he can get out of each single game, in Han Solo manner („never tell me how bad my chances are“). I liked the way he wrestled with Grishuk from a bad middlegame on, step by step into a slight advantage and then converting into a winning position, even avoiding a drawn endgame a knight up, while both were playing with time pressure. Simply stunning!
I am convinced he meanwhile gets a lot of respect from other players (Caruana already expressed his, Kramnik probably will never admit it) for that kind of mixture of skill and fighting spirit.

He himself once more was quite objective and respectful in his press conference with Karlova. He congratulated Anand, for playing the still (after Carlsen’s blunder) not trivial win against him very well. He accepted the loss as fair loss, regarding having been lucky at other times. And he showed in a from my view very open and sympathetic way, how much he really enjoyed the win after all the stress, instead of using one of these ready made press conference statements or such cases. He was straight, open and even a bit emotional in a charming youthful way.

Everybody is free too disagree: Magnus Carlsen to me is a a world champion (now a double one), whom I definitely like. And I’m glad that Caruana, Aronian and Anand finished so close behind him, keeping the tension high for things to come. I was switching back and forth between the games today, and there was a lot of high tension chess going on! It’s a great time for watching chess live! Not sorry for Karjakin: he had enough fun in Norway. Definitely sorry for Nakamura: he was often overhyped as rapid and blitz player (and has no small opinion about himself concerning both), but definitely played below his best form.

The commentator was a funny Russian bear, with skilled chess commnets, but moaning and grumbling with his heavy Russian accent in a way, that made me laugh more than once. „A Rrrussian prrroverb says: „Rrrrepetion ist he motherrr of wisdommm.“ As long as they keep on repeating such great chess events, I’m all for it! :-))

Thank you for this post. So refreshing to read something else than the ramblings of the trolls here. I have so much respect for the top players, the level of chess is fantastic and Magnus' ability to come out on top against all odds is truly special. Looking forward to the blitz, expecting a little champ hangover from Magnus but certainly not counting him out..! Maybe Aronian will win?

@jimknopf:
thank you for your informative/interesting comment.
one can think that audience of chess should at least make some level of sense, but trolls are ruining these comment sections w/ their love&hate relationships against great chess players, and also against themselves. there is no reason for that behavior though…
anyways, thank you again for the insightful comment!

GJ Magnus, especially bouncing back from that defeat by Tiger, I expected him to simply fall apart, as many would on his spot. But to me Vishy is clear moral winner, the only undefeated player it seems, taking the medal (and few pleasant memories =), getting nice rating points - at that age... I am very pleasantly surprised.

Another pleasant surprise is Caruana, I kinda owe him an ˝apology˝ since I underestimated his rapid skills (I was wondering how did he get so high in rapid rankings), but he performed very well, and is actually No1 at the moment =) Excellent job.

Talking about Grischuk´s and Karjakin´s performance is different story... I also expected much more from MVL, but there is some blitzing ahead, we shall see...

I personally think Nakamura overestimates his own skills relative to other top players in rapid and blitz. He looks at his online dominance and his rating and thinks he is the best, but he is not taking into account that most other top players don't view success in rapid and blitz with the same seriousness he does. He surely is an exceptionally good speed player, but, in a tournament like this with serious money on the line, the "gloves come off" and he has a much harder time of it than he, or his fans, would ever dare predict.

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